Sparks fly everywhere as a young boy with a dirty, black and White 'Yankees' baseball-cap strikes the rusty lock with a long red crowbar. The chest does not move a bit but the lock swings from left to right and back again as the bang of metal on metal resounds trough the dark basement. Trough a hole in the roof, the same place cellar-stairs once stood throws some light in the dark room. A rope bungles from an extended wooden beam, it is clearly worn and a large hook lies motionless on the wet floor.
Another bang deafens the boy but this time the sound is accompanied by a metal crack as the lock falls apart into two halves and falls between the boys legs. Quickly he throws the crowbar on the ground and lifts the heavy lid. Then his leather-gloved hands rumble trough the chest. A torchlight, a notebook, empty. A set of pencils, a map, and a small pile of books. He trows the books out and pockets the torchlight and the pencils before searching for more valuable stuff inside. Matches, a handkerchief and a small set of scales. Then his eyes fall on the cover of a faded book and he takes it out. There is a large X on the cover and besides that he sees a city in rubble, nothing strange for him as he can not remember them different. Nevertheless the cover interest him, because of the frightened men or the strange flying metal object hovering above the rubble. The boy turns his head and shouts:
”Dad, could you please come down here?”
With the agility of a monkey an older man with Grey hair and a large scar on his forehead descends the rope. He places his rifle against a little broken chair in the corner before approaching his son.
”What have you got there Jeremiah?”
The boy shows his father the book and points at the picture before opening it.
”What is it about dad?”
His father razes his eyebrows as he takes the book from his son. Then he kneels and opens it after blowing of the dust.
”This book tells about the world as it used to be. It tells about the fight of a few brave men fighting to preserve, fighting to save this world. Sadly they where not able to write the ending to the book and I suppose no book will ever be published telling the proper ending. This my boy is the story of the end of the world before you where born.”
The young boy looks at his dad with big curious eyes.
”Will you read it for me dad, please?”
And so they leave for their encampment, a small shelter in an old, ruined hotel. It has been another day of scavaging amongst the ruins. Fortunately they did not meet anyone and so they can retreat to the cellar of the hotel and cook some food to still the hunger in their stomaches. But that evening father would tell his son of the world the little boy has never seen. He would start to tell of a time when all had been so completely different, the time before the end.
Last edited: